Where Shall I Turn To
By Tiger

By my watch I find that it is a little after one o'clock. I just finished eating and I'm ready to go home and crawl into bed. The walk home is a long one for two reasons, one being I live in the middle of nowhere and two I have a lot to think about. On my way out a drunken classmate who wouldn't give me the time of day sober stops me, talking nonsense. I give him a little conversation, just enough to pacify him so I can go home and go to bed.

I turn up my dark street, the streetlight is out again so I can't see much but I'm lucky enough to be able to see quite well in the dark. I get to my house and reach in my pocket for my key. "Oh shit!!! I left it inside again." I said trying not to be to loud. The last time this happened I went to Willow's but I don't want to do it again that would be rude right? Nahhh, she won't mind she never does.

I get to Willows house and everything is dark. "She's usually up doing something. Where is she?" I walk around back to see if her light is on. No luck her parent's room is right under hers so I don't want to make too much noise. "How do I get her without waking up her parents?" I think aloud. I grab a rock but I put it back because it's much too large. I'd end up giving her a heart attack and kill her then I still won't have a place to sleep. I grab some pebbles. I toss one up, no reaction. I toss another one up, still no reaction. It is almost two in the morning and I'm tired and getting pissed off so I take the rest of the pebbles and thow them up at her window. To my luck I see a light.

Willow comes to the window in her robe. "Hey, Wills. I, uh, forgot my key again." I say not trying to sound too stupid. I know this is the second time this has happened and I don't want her mad at me.

"That's twice this week." She says shaking her head. But to my happiness she comes down stairs and lets me in. "What happened this time?" she asked.

"I went to McDonalds around eleven and got talking to one of the guys. It was one thirty by the time I got home, and both my parents were unconscious." I didn't want to scare her with that but the truth is the truth. "You can stay here. You're always welcome." She said.

"Thanks, Wills. You're the best." She has always been a good friend to me. She goes in and tells her mom.

When she comes back out she says that it is all right. She grabs my clothes out of her closet and tells me to give me the ones I'm wearing so they will be clean tomorrow. I get comfortable on the couch and ready to fall asleep when I hear her talking again.

Something about being best friends, hating Cordelia and the fact that she was a girl. That made me sit up because she totally caught me off guard. I think about that last comment. It finally occurred to me that most people of the opposite sex as close as we are usually share a bed or like the same guy but not us we are, well, different.

She is quiet so I assume that she is as tired as I am then she asks a question that I hoped she would never ask. "Xander, why do you always come here? Jesse lives closer."

I have dreaded this question for some time. I can't answer that question truthfully not to her. I don't believe that I could tell anybody the true reason I come back to Willow. I think hard. "I'm safe here." Is all I manage to say. She didn't say anything after that so I guess she bought it. Though it is true that I am safe at Willows house there will always be another reason.

"Goodnight Wills." I say to break the silence. "Sleep well."

We lost Jesse not long after that. Eventually we all got keys to the library so I didn't always have to go to Willow's house in the middle of the night.

One Saturday night I came to realize that nothing was the same. I was getting too close to Wills without Jesse around. She was going to find out the truth. Whenever we got to close before I would hang out with Jesse but with him gone I can't. I must stop... I have to quit seeing her. I can't take the pressure any longer. I will make tonight the last night that she ever hears pebbles on the window.